“You’re right!” he exclaimed in amazement. “The carbons show you wrote the name John Borman, not Gorman.”
“I knew I did!”
“But the copy that was turned into the basket said John Gorman. Didn’t you change it on the first sheet?”
“Indeed I didn’t, Mr. DeWitt.”
Scowling, the editor compared the two copies. Obviously on the original sheet, a neat erasure had been made, and a typewritten letter G had been substituted for B.
“There’s something funny about this,” Mr. DeWitt said. “Mighty funny!” His gaze roved about the typewriter table, focusing for an instant upon Elda who had been listening intently to the conversation. “Never mind,” he added to Penny. “We’ll look into this.”
Later, she saw him showing the copy sheets to the assistant editor. Seemingly, the two men were deeply puzzled as to how the error had been made. Penny had her own opinion.
“Elda did it,” she thought resentfully. “I’ll wager she removed the sheet from the wire basket when she pretended to be making a correction on her own story!”
Having no proof, Penny wisely kept her thoughts to herself. But she knew that in the future she must take double precautions to guard against other tricks to discredit her.
At the end of the day, the newsroom rapidly emptied. One by one, reporters covered their typewriters and left the building. A few of the girls remained, among them, Penny and Elda. Editor DeWitt was putting on his hat when the telephone rang.